Itogon mayor denies tolerating illegal mining because of wife's gold business

Itogon, Benguet Mayor Victorio Palangdan on Wednesday denied that he tolerated the operations of illegal small-scale miners in his municipality because his wife is in the business of buying gold.

A landslide at a mining site in Barangay Ucab during the height of Typhoon Ompong over the weekend has left 18 people, mostly small-scale miners, dead, with many more still missing.

Benguet Corporation, which abandoned the site years ago, said the miners were operating illegally.

Interviewed on Dobol B sa News TV, Palangdan admitted that his wife was in the business of buying gold but added she stopped earlier this year after miners stopped selling gold to her because of the tax.

"Yung small-scale miners, binenta na lang nila sa smugglers or sa black market [yung gold] dahil walang tax," he said, adding the miners found the 4 percent to 7 percent tax for gold too steep.

Palangdan also said he told the miners to sell gold directly to the government after he met with representatives from the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) early this year.

He said he was told during the meeting that if "these small-scale miners will not send their gold to central bank, the military will stop their (miners) operations."

"So I went aruond the whole municipality and campaigned that they should sell their gold directly to the central bank or those buyers that are accredited by the BIR and the central bank," Palangan said.

He said his wife was an accredited buyer, hence the tax.

During the interview, Palangan also denied that the local government failed to forcefully evacuate the miners ahead of Ompong, saying the miners chose to follow their leader who opted to stay at their mining camp.

"The leader said we will not move out becaue this is a safe place. We are ready here. Nandito mga pagkain namin. Hindi niyo kami mapipilit. Yun ang sabi ng lider," he said.

The leader was identified as Edwin Banawol whose body was among those retrieved on Tuesday. —KBK, GMA News